An Easy to Follow Guide to Setting SMART Goals

Setting SMART goals for your business is crucial if you want to grow and expand. Unfortunately, setting loose or unachievable goals can do more harm than good. It can be easy to say, “I want to grow my social media,” but that isn’t enough. You need to set a specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant goal for your business with a time frame in mind.

Specific 

What exactly do you want to achieve? 

Instead of saying, “I want to grow my social media presence,” think about which platforms you could use. After you know which platforms to use, figure out precisely what you want to do to improve your social media. Do you want to gain 100 followers? Do you want to get over 100 likes on every post? Maybe you need to be consistent on social media; your first goal is to post daily. 

Measurable 

How will you know you have achieved this goal? 

Making it measurable is pretty easy if you have your specifics figured out. Let’s say you want to gain followers, views, likes, or comments; you can use insights on social media. On the other hand, if the goal is more logistics related, like improving sales by 100% or improving profit margins by X amount, you need to find a way to track your progress. How do you know what you’ve achieved if you can’t track your progress?

Attainable 

Can you realistically achieve this?

Some people are better at dreaming extensively than others. Make sure that the goal you’re setting is attainable for your current situation. Do you have the necessary skills, resources, time, and energy to achieve this goal? Sometimes this is part of the goal-setting phase where you must decide if you need outside help. Hiring a consultant firm like ours can be highly beneficial if you have the resources but not the time and necessary skills.

Relevant

Is this goal relevant to your current situation?

You need to ensure that your goals are relevant to your overall business plans and strategies. If you’re not getting website clicks, consider specific and measurable goals that will increase website traffic. “I want to increase website traffic” is not a SMART goal. This could be your primary objective, but what individual goals will get you to that? “I want to increase my Instagram followers by 100 people by the end of the 2nd quarter” is a SMART goal. It is specific, measurable, most likely attainable, and relevant to my current situation. 

Time Bound

When do you want to achieve this?

The final step to setting SMART goals is to develop a time you want to achieve them. In our last section, I used the example, “I want to increase my Instagram followers by 100 people by the end of the 2nd quarter”. In this case, “By the end of the 2nd quarter” would be your time frame. It can be a day, month, or time frame you need to set a time to accomplish your goal. Remember all those school projects you did; you always had a deadline to complete them. The more time you gave yourself to work on the project, the less stressed and more prepared you were. 

I’m sure we’ve all waited until the last minute to finish a project, but your business isn’t just a middle school project. Your business is your pride and joy; you must take steps to grow and expand your business. If you need help writing up a business plan and accomplishing all of your SMART goals, reach out to us. We have all of the tools and resources you need to be successful.